Garak got six months for attempted genocide. The Federation is lax with its sentences.
Bashir's genetic resequencing
- Thread starter Darkwing
- Start date
No, the next would be named "Fett."
Didn't Cardassians have some kind of super-soldier experiments? The soldier left behind on Empok Nor was supposed to be a result of that, iirc. Maybe not genetic engineering - I honestly don't remember - but they could simply have decided that whatever path they did choose was more likely to be successful than gene therapy.
The Cardassians are also clearly technologically inferior to the Federation. They may have never been able to even figure genetic engineering out in the first place.
Also, the fact that they were never charged with treason, while it certainly benefited them as it caused them not to be executed, suggests that they are not even considered having the mental faculties to be responsible for their own decisions.
A task for them? Literally just about anything that doesn't involve military secrets.
Imagine Jack as professor at a university trying to teach his students higher mathematics......
What could have lead you to that conclusion. I see their tech as being basically equal, certainly their military tech is.
Imagine Jack as professor at a university trying to teach his students higher mathematics......
I've had grad student instructors like that...
What could have lead you to that conclusion. I see their tech as being basically equal, certainly their military tech is.
Terok Nor wasn't exactly a shining example of functioning engineering.
Also, I seem to remember specific references that (except for the really huge war cruisers) Cardassian ships were generally weaker. Maybe I'm crazy, though. I don't know exactly where those references happened.
Even just speaking generally, though, I think it's safe to say that the Federation has some of the best military technology in existence in the Alpha quadrant. Federation starships were repeateadly shown as being capable of fighting entire squadrons of enemy ships. Their main military limitation was simply that the Federation isn't militarily minded, and therefore it doesn't maintain as large a supply of new ships and troops as it potentially could.
The Cardassians heavily vandalized the station before abandoning it to the Bajorians. And renovating it was a low priority for Starfleet prior to the Dominion War.
"The Wounded" makes it pretty clear that the worst that the Cardassian war machine can throw against Starfleet only makes the Enterprise tickle.
It also tells the story of the only known Cardassian combat victory: a slaughter of civilians. And then infantryman O'Brien defeats that by accidentally firing a phaser on kill when he only meant to stun... Calling Cardassians "adversaries" is probably giving them too much credit!
One wonders if the adversaries of the UFP aren't in fact genetically engineered supermen (superklingons, superromulans) through and through. Vulcanoids are stronger, Klingons are burlier and more aggressive, etc. Might well be that everybody else is playing the Iotian game and turning themselves into cartoonishly extreme portrayals of the idealized male and female, and what we see is the end result of that (doing anything more would result in all those ambitious madmen the UFP fears so much, and what the Klingons do is already closer to that than the UFP is comfortable with).
I don't see a contradiction between the TNG examples of genetic engineering and the DS9 phobia/ban. In TNG, it was the government that engineered (plus a few non-UFP parties of humans, relics from bygone days). Surely the government would not only allow itself the things it denies from its citizens, but also insist on doing research on those in order to stay on top of the situation.
As for Jules changing into a different person due to the therapy, I don't see the moral objection the OP outlines. Our Trek heroes don't in general think that a person who changes would die and be reborn: it is allowed to develop oneself, to alter one's lifestyle and opinions, to change one's appearance, to get cured or rejuvenated. Change isn't death. And we have seen that both the body and the mind can change without destroying continuity of self as viewed by the rest of the population: people in the TNG era are "ships of Theseus", with an infinite number of changes of all elements allowed, including major changes in any given element.
Timo Saloniemi
It also tells the story of the only known Cardassian combat victory: a slaughter of civilians. And then infantryman O'Brien defeats that by accidentally firing a phaser on kill when he only meant to stun... Calling Cardassians "adversaries" is probably giving them too much credit!
One wonders if the adversaries of the UFP aren't in fact genetically engineered supermen (superklingons, superromulans) through and through. Vulcanoids are stronger, Klingons are burlier and more aggressive, etc. Might well be that everybody else is playing the Iotian game and turning themselves into cartoonishly extreme portrayals of the idealized male and female, and what we see is the end result of that (doing anything more would result in all those ambitious madmen the UFP fears so much, and what the Klingons do is already closer to that than the UFP is comfortable with).
I don't see a contradiction between the TNG examples of genetic engineering and the DS9 phobia/ban. In TNG, it was the government that engineered (plus a few non-UFP parties of humans, relics from bygone days). Surely the government would not only allow itself the things it denies from its citizens, but also insist on doing research on those in order to stay on top of the situation.
As for Jules changing into a different person due to the therapy, I don't see the moral objection the OP outlines. Our Trek heroes don't in general think that a person who changes would die and be reborn: it is allowed to develop oneself, to alter one's lifestyle and opinions, to change one's appearance, to get cured or rejuvenated. Change isn't death. And we have seen that both the body and the mind can change without destroying continuity of self as viewed by the rest of the population: people in the TNG era are "ships of Theseus", with an infinite number of changes of all elements allowed, including major changes in any given element.
Timo Saloniemi
Or the Federation didn't know what was going on there. It could have been a secret operation. Just the sort of thing Section 31 would be into.
*sigh*
While our heroes aren't immediately aware of what the Darwin station might be researching, they do know it's genetic stuff, "filling Picard with apprehension". So it's not secret, and it's not illegal or forbidden - it's merely publicly controversial, supposedly because of the potential to cause harm of the sort just witnessed aboard the Lantree.
Once the heroes do learn the station is trying to develop a superior breed of human, they go "Oh, okay then". That aspect never bothers them, probably because it's done properly, under government lock and key.
Timo Saloniemi
Once the heroes do learn the station is trying to develop a superior breed of human, they go "Oh, okay then". That aspect never bothers them, probably because it's done properly, under government lock and key.
Timo Saloniemi
Actually there treatment is more inline with how people on the autism spectrum are treated.
****points to name*****
The dynamic of Jack and the others is exactly what I see at some of the autism(high functioning) social groups that I attend.
Everything about it is dead on, minus being locked up.
The core message is the lack of inclusion, and the proper channels for inclusion.
I know plenty of people that have alot to contribute who cannot get work due to societal boundaries.
Yeah one of the implications is that has improved as these people are they are not actually perfect.
Julian couldn't beat worf in a fight.
Khan was beaten by a very simple trick in STID.
The list goes on.
It's kinda stated time and time again super intelligence has some very real limits.
Data couldn't make basic social skill judgments something that would be easy for a truly intelligent being.
I don't get it.
How else could one explain how so many potentially dangerous things are kept covered up.
There are an infinite number of threats to the federation with 31 they'd be extremely vulnerable to threats.
Well, to be fair, Bashir didn't get the full-on Augment treatment like Khan and his ilk did. And they were raised *from birth* - or perhaps even before then - to be superior. Bashir didn't get his until he was already several years old.
If you'll notice from the ENT Augments arc, just two of those augmented people - not much different from Bashir in terms of size - were able to overpower and kill the entire crew of a Klingon starship...
Let me clarify: Back when the show was on, I thought it was just therapy - inject Jules with a DNA retrovirus that rewrites his DNA to make him better, without killing him. It's only recently I've begun wondering if the illegality was more the result of braintaping Jules into a modified clone, then passing Julian off as the now-deceased Jules. That would explain the degree of criminality it appears to garner. But it seems to be a rather rare view in this forum. I'm surprised. I fully expected more diversity on this question, and thought someone would have claimed to have "known it" at the time.
I guess we're all saturated with the "transporter question" where a person is also possibly replaced by an identical duplicate and this is supposed to mean death and associated moral complications. But the Trek society would be likewise saturated: they just couldn't go on living unless they treated replacement-by-duplicate as a benign everyday phenomenon. And if so, replacement-by-better-than-duplicate shouldn't raise any eyebrows, either.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
Poor Bashir has never had much chance around the pushy, self-confident machos and harpies he was surrounded by. I think he was an extremely decent human being and his goodness and sensitivity were often mistaken for gullibility. His enhancements did not change his personality and everything he was had been achieved through hard work and diligence, his enhancements only made it possible.
Still, forbidding a technology that can help people have normal lives instead of spending their lives as institutionalized drooling idiots does not make sense. The fear of human augments paralyzed scientists for centuries so they refused to see beyond their fears and acknowledge the positive side of this technology. A typical example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Each technology can be abused or turned into weapon so banning it does not change anything. Those who want to get it, will do it, one way or another.
Having in mind that Bashir’s parents have found a way to side-step the ban, there might be probably more. Genetic sequencing in his case has only addressed and corrected his innate deficiencies, it had not turned him into an eugenic superhuman ready to take over the universe because it did not tamper with his original psychological make-up. The augments were also exposed to a certain kind of operant conditioning, while Bashir was raised by a normal family.
Jack-Pack encompassed the failure cases but even Jack was not a bad or malignant person who wanted to do harm. He was unstable and embittered by being treated as a broken toy that everyone wanted to hide and forget about it. They had problems with integration and self-control, they needed to be supervised but still they were not a public enemy and in fact wanted to help and be part of society. What is more, I suspect that part of this behavior was a result of spending years on end in a room without any intellectual and communicative stimulation. John Nash who died recently had similar problems but this did not stop him from being a very talented mathematician.
Still, forbidding a technology that can help people have normal lives instead of spending their lives as institutionalized drooling idiots does not make sense. The fear of human augments paralyzed scientists for centuries so they refused to see beyond their fears and acknowledge the positive side of this technology. A typical example of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Each technology can be abused or turned into weapon so banning it does not change anything. Those who want to get it, will do it, one way or another.
Having in mind that Bashir’s parents have found a way to side-step the ban, there might be probably more. Genetic sequencing in his case has only addressed and corrected his innate deficiencies, it had not turned him into an eugenic superhuman ready to take over the universe because it did not tamper with his original psychological make-up. The augments were also exposed to a certain kind of operant conditioning, while Bashir was raised by a normal family.
Jack-Pack encompassed the failure cases but even Jack was not a bad or malignant person who wanted to do harm. He was unstable and embittered by being treated as a broken toy that everyone wanted to hide and forget about it. They had problems with integration and self-control, they needed to be supervised but still they were not a public enemy and in fact wanted to help and be part of society. What is more, I suspect that part of this behavior was a result of spending years on end in a room without any intellectual and communicative stimulation. John Nash who died recently had similar problems but this did not stop him from being a very talented mathematician.
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